Police officers, deputies hold joint training
A joint training and shooting competition among local law enforcement was held on Saturday.
Local law enforcement revived the decades-old friendly competition this month, hoping to hold more interdepartmental training and competitions in the future.
Deputy Cortez Peebles, a DUI officer with the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office and a reserve officer with the Philadelphia Police Department, organized the event.
The joint training and shooting competition was held on Saturday, June 15, at 8 a.m. at the city’s shooting range off Deemer Road.
Representatives of the Philadelphia Police Department and Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office participated in a variety of pistol shooting and handling drills and capped the morning off with a friendly shooting competition.
The Philadelphia Police Department took both the overall group trophy and officer Justis Lilly took home the top individual prize.
“It was a great fun and competitive competition between all officers that were involved,” Lyons said. “We look forward to more training and competition in the near future.”
Neshoba County Sheriff Eric Clark called both the training and competitive components of the event “pretty intense.”
“It was a great opportunity for our departments to train together and work on each individual’s handgun technique,” Clark said.
Peebles said the event was a great opportunity for officers from both departments to “shake hands” and meet each other.
According to Peebles, the competition dates back to 2005 and has not been held since 2006. In 2005 the Choctaw Police Department took top honors. Peebles said CPD had had some officers show interest but had a conflicting training of their own that day and were unable to make it.
In 2006 the Sheriff’s Office took the top prize and the trophy has sat around the Neshoba County Sheriff’s Office ever since.
“It was one of those things we always said we would do it again one day,” Peebles said.
After the success of this most recent event, Peebles said they have received a lot of interest from surrounding law enforcement.
“Right now, we want to do a rifle event in the fall,” Peebles said. “We are looking to make this a little bit bigger and a little better each time if we can.”